Cover photo: The Maple Avenue entrance (Credit – Matt Meduri)
As part of Smithtown’s overall revitalization, restoring empty and blighted properties is perhaps the foremost component, along with incentivizing development and capturing the synergy between residential and commercial development.
The Lofts at Maple and Main serve as the first transit-oriented development (TOD) project in downtown Smithtown. Occupying the land of the former Nassau Suffolk Lumber and Supply Company – then a twelve-year blighted property – broke ground in 2019. It formally launched its grand opening last year, featuring seventy-one units and a mixed-use zoning aspect with businesses on the ground floor.
The primary aim is to be a walkable community. The complex has three buildings, the first facing Main Street directly across from Town Hall, and the latter two set back from Maple Avenue. The property sits just across Smithtown Central School District across New York Avenue, and just up Main Street from a variety of businesses and shopping plazas.
The Messenger got an inside look at the property well into their nascent existence, along with some of the businesses occupying the ground level of the Main Street building.
The attention-grabbing features of the complex are the facilities on the lower level of the Main Street building, available to all Lofts residence. The lower level consists of a gym, storage units, a small movie theater, and a game room.
The theater features one large television, through residents can block out certain times for sports matches, birthday parties, or movie nights through streaming services. The outside hallway is adorned with the classic movie theater look of illuminated posters of hit movies, including E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Avatar, and Goodfellas.
The game room features a billiards table and an air hockey table, just adjacent to the theatre.
The gym features several different stations and personal trainers hired by residents are permitted into the facility for the duration of a session.
Each building has seventeen basement storage units that can be utilized by residents for an additional fee. Dimensions ranging from 4×10 feet to 7×15. Each basement housing the storage units has an elevator and separate loading dock to make moving in and out easier.
The Main Street building contains a near-even split of one-bedroom and two-bedroom units, twelve and fourteen, respectively. The large one-bedroom units are situated on the first floor.
Units are only for rent, with the market price letting each unit rest between the $3000 and $4000 monthly rate. One-bedroom units in the backmost buildings of the complex start at around $2900, with top-floor two-bedroom units clocking in at $3950.
Interior design of the units is uniquely urban-contemporary in style, along with in-unit washing machines and dryers. Walls and windows were designed with noise reduction in mind, making even the Main Street-front units silent from the outside world.
Each building also has a separate style of artwork throughout the lobbies and hallways. The Main Street building consists of landscape photography, primarily coastal settings. The central building’s theme is that of music, with posters and photos ranging from Prince, Woodstock, and other memorabilia. The southernmost building’s theme is modern art, featuring replica paintings of Van Gogh, Picasso, and notable artists.
A particular standout of the Lofts is that some floors only feature a handful of units, with the Main Street building’s top floor featuring just two. Neighbors are nearby, but the constant noise of foot traffic down the hall negates a hotel-like feeling for an apartment building.
The lower level of the Main Street building facing Main Street is currently home to two businesses, with room for more. Beauty Bomb Aesthetics and Dirty Cheesecake are the current tenants.
